1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to retail food sales. In particular, the present invention relates to characterizing the nutritional value of foods in a standardized way, establishing food nutritional value designations, and presenting that information in a readily observable manner.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Current literature documents the growing problems of obesity, heart disease, cancer, and other diseases that may be prevented or mitigated by healthy eating and lifestyle choices. The public is inundated with information about the dangers of certain types of foods and the benefits of others. It is difficult for consumers to keep current with the latest research and to synthesize that information into meaningful purchasing decisions at the grocery store.
The retail food sales business is extremely competitive. Because competition on price alone is not always possible or effective, food retailers often look for other ways to distinguish themselves from their competitors. Customer service is one of the more effective ways for food retailers to compete. One such customer service is providing information about the food products. As consumers become more health-conscious, they are more inclined to shop at food retailers that regularly provide helpful, accurate and consistent information about the effects that the food products being offered might have on consumer health.
Much of the information presented to the consumer at the point of sale is inadequate for a number of reasons. The information provided is not based upon one set of uniform standards. Product packaging and marketing materials may or may not contain information about healthy attributes of the products depending upon the marketing strategy of the manufacturer. Even when such information does appear, it may be incomplete, confusing or inaccurate. Some such information consists of the endorsement of the product by a health-related entity, for which the manufacturer has paid a fee. Another type of such information consists of a health designation based upon consideration of a very limited set of criteria in order to produce a desired result. Some information is simply nutritional data for selected nutrients, while other less desirable ingredients are ignored.
It is also noteworthy that much of the information comes not from the retailer, but from the manufacturer. Manufacturer's designations are, by definition, limited to their own products and do not provide information about competing products. This limitation precludes a meaningful comparison of competing products of different brands. Given the manufacturer's vested interest in selling as many of its products as possible, consumers may question the accuracy or completeness of the manufacturer's designations as well.
Nor is it always practical for consumers to rely upon the nutritional information and ingredient lists or lists of nutritional data on product labels. To do so would require the consumer to spend a significant amount of time reading and analyzing the information on the product label. The nutritional data are subject to manipulation by varying the serving size. Because there is no standardized serving size, manufacturers may, for example, artificially reduce the serving size to reduce the quantity of kilocalories or fat disclosed on the label, thereby making the product appear more healthy than it actually is. Relying upon such lists can therefore be too time consuming and unreliable.
Specific examples of existing methods of providing health related information about food products illustrate many of these shortcomings. Most methods involve the use of designations, often consisting of a label alerting the consumer to a particular characteristic of the product. For instance, the method employed by Wegmans Food Markets, Inc., a food retailer based in Rochester, N.Y., (“Wegmans”) uses 13 labels identifying characteristics such as “gluten free”, “vegan”, “high fiber”, and “heart healthy”. Wegmans only designates the products sold under its own brands, and does not designate the products sold under other brands. Another such system is the “smart shopping” certification offered by the American Heart Association to certain manufacturers who choose to participate in the program. This system “certifies” food products as “heart-healthy”. Certified food products may then display a designation recognizable to consumers. Like the Wegmans method, this system is not employed universally across different brands because only the participating manufacturer's branded products are graded. The vast majority of food products displayed in a grocery store are therefore left ungraded. It is often impossible to use such systems to compare the participating manufacturer's products to competing products. These systems also rely upon a very limited set of criteria. The heart healthy designation is given to any food that contains fat, sodium, and cholesterol below a certain level and at least one nutrient (vitamin A, C, calcium, iron, protein or fiber) in an amount above a certain level. Many of the other ingredients that affect health are not considered. That is, there is not a comprehensive identification of overall potential effects of the product on human health based on the complete nutritional profile.
Another type of designation system involves providing basic nutritional data without comprehensive analysis, such as the nutritional information label required by the United States Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), or labels that tout a certain level of a certain ingredient or nutrient. Basic nutritional data is information relating to the amounts of substances affecting human health contained in the food product. The FDA label provides the quantities of a government-established list of certain nutrients contained in a serving size. The problem with these methods is that they provide basic data only, and the consumer must analyze that data to determine the potential health effects of the product based on nutritional value. Certain substances that may affect the health characteristics of a product may be omitted from the nutritional data, but may appear on the ingredients list. It might not be apparent or convenient for customers to consult both lists. Another problem is that there is no standard serving size, so the serving sizes on competing products could differ, which would cause a misleading comparison between the two products unless the consumer is savvy enough to adjust the data from one of the products to account for the difference in serving size.
There are several limitations associated with such conventional methods. First, they merely provide a single particular characteristic designation rather than an overall scoring system. Second, they do not score all food products. Third, they do not provide comprehensive information at the point of sale. Fourth, they rely upon limited criteria, and thus are subject to the limitations of those criteria. Fifth, they are limited to assessing a product characteristic that may affect one aspect of healthiness rather than considering the food product as a whole for a more complete sense of the possible nutritional value of the product. Sixth, no standardization of serving size exists within food product groups. What is needed is a system that addresses the barriers that often prevent customers from making healthy choices—inconsistency, inaccuracy, inconvenience and confusion. There is therefore a great demand for a simple, comprehensive, accurate, and easy to understand system of communicating to consumers the relative nutritional values of food products at the point of sale. It would be advantageous for a food retailer to employ such a system as it would distinguish the food retailer from its competitors and enable the food retailer to develop substantial good will and loyalty with its customers.